All set for another high-flying action weekend in Ruka

Dec 09, 2021·Freestyle

Straight from a highly entertaining FIS Freestyle Ski moguls & aerials season opener in Ruka last weekend, we’re back here once again at the famous ski resort in Finland’s Lapland region for another back-to-back action-packed days of aerials competitions this Friday and Saturday, December 10-11.

After a couple days of training in extremely cold conditions at the aerials venue in Ruka, everything is to set wrap up the second week of World Cup takeover in Ruka on a high note.

Friday will see the individual competition go down starting in the morning with women’s qualifications at 10:20 local time and men following up at 13:35. Finals are scheduled to take place at 16:30.

Saturday then will see two different events happening throughout the day, as we will kick things off early in the morning with the one-round format individual competition. Women will drop in at 9:30 with men’s part of the competition scheduled for 13:30. Straight after that individual competition, 10 teams each consisting of three athletes will face each other in what shapes up to be another thrilling aerials mixed team event. The first round of team competitions is scheduled to take place at 16:30 with the big final coming up at 17:20.

Based on what we saw last week at the venue in Ruka, there is plenty of reasons to get excited for the second week of competitions in Ruka. We highly encourage you to check our event recaps HERE - DAY 1 and HERE - DAY 2, and as we believe that the season’s opening event set the trick level bar high, there’s definitely still more to come in 2021/22 and we might witness some of that already this upcoming weekend.

In the women’s competition keep an eye on all those athletes who have triple flips in their repertoire. Starting with the reining World Cup champion, Laura Peel (AUS) will be definitely looking for reception after somehow a disappointing start last week. Then we have Xu Mengtao (CHN), who wrote history while moving atop the all-time World Cup ranking for most victories with her 26th win on Friday. Hanna Huskova, Zhanbota Aldabergenova and Danielle Scott should also be in the mix if they decide to perform their triples.

Obviously also let’s not forget about the current World Cup leader Kong Fanyu (CHN), who showed incredible consistency with her double Full-Full jump, taking a huge win to kick off the season on Thursday and then following it up with a runner-up position on Friday.

The Chinese Aerials Team will be also putting high hopes in their other athletes such as Shao Qi or Xu Sicun, with the US squad also looking to step things up this week and fight for a spot on the podium.

Moving on to the men’s side of competition it’s hard not to begin with Russia’s Maxim Burov, who is leading the way with a perfect score of 200 points in the World Cup ranking following his back-to-back victories last week.

Then we have the Swiss aerials team with Noe Roth and Pirmin Werner in squad, as well as the Chinese team led by the veterans Jia Zongyang and Qi Guangpu.

Going further down the list also watch out for Justin Schoenfeld (USA), Stanisalv Nikitin (RUS), Sherwood Khashyrbayev (KAZ), Dmitry Mazurkevich (BLR),Oleksandr Abramenko (UKR) as well as Dmytro Kotovskyi (UKR), who will be looking to finally stomp his Full-Triple Full-Full aka “The Hurricane” - one of the most difficult jumps in aerial skiing that can easily put him on top of the podium once landed properly.

The team event will be the big highlight of Ruka’s World Cup event with as many as 10 nations ready to make some noise on Saturday night. The Chinese team with Xu Mengtao, Jia Zongyang and Qi Guangpu won the first competition last week, but it was a highly contested event with Russia, Ukraine and Belarus also putting up a great show in the big final. Again this week we’re expecting some high airs and big spins to heat up the atmosphere in Ruka.

WATCH LIVE

Friday

Eurosport 1 (Asia), Eurosport player (Europe), CBC Sports Streaming (Canada), CCTV 5+ (China), Arena (Hungary), JOJTV (Slovakia), SRF Zwei (Switzerland), Streaming on https://skiandsnowboard.live/ (USA), FIS Freestyle Youtube channel

Saturday

Women’s and Men’s Individual Competition

Streaming on Eurosport Player (Europe) + FIS Freestyle Youtube channel: WOMEN / MEN

Aerials Mixed Team Event

QUICK LINKS